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movax posted:Do you prefer resumes that get networked straight over to your desk, and then you can badger HR into granting them interviews? That's how a lot of my supervisors did it...everyone HR "found" for them was not a good fit, at all. HR talk reminds me of some good advice a mentor offered me once regarding resumes: Try to put numbers and hard information on as much as possible. A lot of technical accomplishments sound like moonspeak, but if you have "increasing efficiency by 33%" at the end of it, everybody knows that's a good thing.
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Jun 28, 2012 23:10
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resident posted:HR at my employer has not figured out that recruiting to the midwest is easier if you actually take prospective employees out of the suburbs to eat somewhere other than Applebee's when on an interview visit. They have no loving clue what Kansas City actually has to offer because they've seemingly never traveled inside the loop. Mind of I ask what firm your with?
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Jun 28, 2012 23:39
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Anybody here ever graduate with a really terrible GPA and go on to grad school or nab a job easily? I have a 1.8 and am going into my 4th year. This was due to a combination of being unprepared as well as a serious illness in my 2nd year that completely devastated my grades, and has also put me behind by a year. The catch is that I've had excellent internships, and have contacted over a hundred companies each winter term and managed to land great design placements with great letters of recommendation since my performance while on the job has been great. My grades this year have improved considerably now that I am well, and I'm confident that I will do well the next 1.5-2 years. I also attend a reputable Canadian university. Unfortunately, the extra year (though it may only be a semester) as well as the GPA which I can probably recover to a 2.2 at best is making me pretty anxious for the post-graduation market. I would also like to be open to pursuing an MBA or postgraduate education after working a few years though feel that this is pretty probably unlikely.
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Jun 29, 2012 00:56
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Wilhelm posted:Anybody here ever graduate with a really terrible GPA and go on to grad school or nab a job easily? I have a 1.8 and am going into my 4th year. This was due to a combination of being unprepared as well as a serious illness in my 2nd year that completely devastated my grades, and has also put me behind by a year. It keeps coming up in this topic, but that's because it's important: Network network network. You're in a similar position to where I was when I graduated, I was sick and tried to push through, my GPA ended up in the crapper for it. Here's why networking is good: If you can talk to somebody, exchange some engineering stories, talk about how excited you are about some technology you read about, yeah I built something like that last year, it was pretty neat, I'm improving it this summer, oh by the way here's a business card with my information on it, nice to meet you. If you can do that, you're in good shape, because people won't remember your resume, they'll remember you.
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Jun 29, 2012 01:09
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Ignore this, having weirdness on phone
fishhooked fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Jun 29, 2012 |
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Jun 29, 2012 01:50
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Wilhelm posted:Anybody here ever graduate with a really terrible GPA and go on to grad school or nab a job easily? I have a 1.8 and am going into my 4th year. This was due to a combination of being unprepared as well as a serious illness in my 2nd year that completely devastated my grades, and has also put me behind by a year. A lot of people will accept an "In Major" GPA for a resume, especially since your specific engineering classes aren't until junior and senior year, which can let you put a better GPA on there. Also, a common grad school thing is to only look at the last 60 hours of your degree for the GPA, which can be a good thing if your grades improved towards senior year. Definitely keep networking as much as you can though. That'll help you regardless of gpa or grad school.
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Jun 29, 2012 02:13
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I felt like a failure for only earning a 3.8 GPA before I read this thread. No wonder I get so many goddamn interviews!
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Jun 29, 2012 02:58
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jun 29, 2012 13:25
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fishhooked posted:That seems to be a characteristic of most suburbanites in the outside kc area. My fiancees parents are from Olathe and they are terrified when they visit us downtown. Yeah, KC engineer here too. My interview dinner was at an Applebee's in Lenexa, when I moved down in the River Market my coworkers assumed I dodge bullets on my way in to work. We'd have a lot better luck hiring younger people if HR would let people get a bit more adventurous.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:11
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Thoguh posted:(i.e. field engineer) and work your way up. When you say field engineer, what exactly do you mean? The term has a lot of use and meanings depending on the job required... Also, has anyone had any luck with an employment agency. I don't really have the time to apply to positions at my current job during the week days, and during the weekend I'm mostly taking care of some family related stuff. Senor P. fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jun 29, 2012 |
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Jun 29, 2012 23:31
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jun 29, 2012 23:53
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Senor P. posted:When you say field engineer, what exactly do you mean? The term has a lot of use and meanings depending on the job required... I've gotten interviews through employment agencies, but my two positions came through my school and a cold submit of my resume to a craigslist ad. I think it depends on your area, you'd probably have better luck if you have a few years under your belt and are willing to move for them.
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Jun 30, 2012 00:09
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Thoguh posted:In this case I mean agreeing to work odd hours in Bumfuck, Nowhere for a few years for an oil company or government contractor. I spent 4 straight days in a corn field in Ohio living out of my truck cobbling together and operating a mobile drilling fluid plant out of parts that should never go together and with pumps that could only shoot mud 30 feet in the air instead of doing what was intended. That's being a field engineer. That said, I kinda like it because I only work half the year, and when I'm in the field, EVERYTHING is paid for.
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Jun 30, 2012 01:23
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Thoguh posted:
Things like this make me pretty anxious, however I suppose all I can really do is finish off the final 2 years with as strong of a GPA as possible. I'm also worried that having an odd combination of third/fourth year courses will also be looked at as a bit strange. Do all companies ask for GPA though? All of the interviews that I have done thus far have not resulted in being asked about grades, and it has only come up in larger companies which use online forms (Where a 1.8 certainly won't be going through!).
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Jun 30, 2012 20:08
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Wilhelm posted:Things like this make me pretty anxious, however I suppose all I can really do is finish off the final 2 years with as strong of a GPA as possible. I'm also worried that having an odd combination of third/fourth year courses will also be looked at as a bit strange. You might also want to see if you can pad the GPA with some electives or retake some classes.
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Jun 30, 2012 20:13
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jun 30, 2012 20:25
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Thoguh posted:
I understand that completely, ultimately it was health issues that plagued me throughout 1st and 2nd year (as well as poor habits in the former) that caused me to be in the situation I'm in. I will look into retaking earlier courses, since my course loads will be lower than normal the next two years (As mentioned, I'm stuck doing an extra year regardless). I've been fortunate and been able to secure strong internships so I'll be able to back it up with those experiences to some extent. I don't particularly have an in anywhere, although I have been focusing on networking lately with some great outcomes and maybe something will come out of it. Thanks for the advice, my plan is to do great the next two years and hopefully showing that improvement will get me a little forgiveness for having a poor overall GPA.
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Jun 30, 2012 20:49
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movax posted:Do you prefer resumes that get networked straight over to your desk, and then you can badger HR into granting them interviews? That's how a lot of my supervisors did it...everyone HR "found" for them was not a good fit, at all. It all depends on HR policy at each company. Where I work, HR gave me a list of three types of candidates for the openings they posted for my department: those they liked, those that qualified, and those that didn't. I agree with you, the ones that they liked were terrible. Company policy dictated that I needed to interview the ones they like before I could get to the other qualified applicants. Then to get to the latter group, I need the VP of my department to sign off. I know the VP very well so getting that waiver is possible but it is still a huge pain in the rear end. Now these days, they require supervisors to have eight years of experience. In the past, it was six. They've raised the bar for absolutely no reason. Also, they pay less than they used to. While I'm a supervisor now, these days I probably would not have been able to make it under the new HR guidelines. I got to be a supervisor with about three years of experience with a director signing off on it. It's madness I tell you. Wilhelm posted:Things like this make me pretty anxious, however I suppose all I can really do is finish off the final 2 years with as strong of a GPA as possible. I'm also worried that having an odd combination of third/fourth year courses will also be looked at as a bit strange. Go retake some classes if you're really concerned. Better to take an additional semester to fix your grades if it means getting a better job. It isn't a death sentence though: I know of a girl who had to retake calculus four times and physics three times and found employment in the end. I also know of a guy who graduated with a 2.4 with a few offers (he was really big into clubs and organizations; he was a very charismatic guy). The Experiment fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jul 1, 2012 |
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Jul 1, 2012 00:45
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Edit: moving this, wrong thread for it.
Valithan fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Jul 3, 2012 |
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Jul 2, 2012 06:25
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Few weeks in, and I'm still job hunting. Three of the interviews I had gotten ended up being for positions wildly different than what I was looking for - but was apparently still attractive to the employers anyway - and the other dropped off the face of the earth after I did an in-person interview. I'm getting back on the job search treadmill, and now I'm paying more attention to networking. LinkedIn is great, sure, but uh...what do I do with it? Add people? Comment on discussions or PM spam some head of a company? One major thing I've learned from this round is that there is nothing inherently wrong with my resume or experience or anything. None of this is a problem with me, myself. I'm perfectly fine. The problem is that there is just terrible availability in my area for BME or Biotech related stuff, and whatever there is, is looking for someone to replace their 25-year experienced super-accredited device designer or something. I know now why so many college graduates are leaving Massachusetts in droves. If I hadn't just moved I'd go to NC or something for a job, but ughhhh more moving  (It's also that a BS in Biomedical Engineering is basically useless since we have zero depth, according to some.)So my checklist now is to build up a network (god knows how) and pass my resume around to people who don't balk at me, but this might be harder than I thought. I am not a people person at all, if I wasn't socially retarded I wouldn't be posting here.  If all else fails, gently caress it, grad school. I'll just lie about my GPA or something. edit: I'm thinking what I should also do is start brainstorming about how I can turn this BME degree into a way of getting into another kind of industry. What do you guys think this degree prepared me for? My education was very holistic, but didn't specialize in anything specific, so I'm not sure whether I could transition into, like, software or electrician work or anything. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Jul 4, 2012 |
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Jul 4, 2012 21:40
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2012 01:08
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Thoguh posted:Which is worse, unemployment or having to go through the effort of a move? I know, I know. 
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Jul 5, 2012 01:37
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Pollyanna posted:I'm getting back on the job search treadmill, and now I'm paying more attention to networking. LinkedIn is great, sure, but uh...what do I do with it? Add people? Comment on discussions or PM spam some head of a company? LinkedIn isn't really all that robust of an entry-level tool, but the answer is the same as the earlier answers: NETWORKING. That's what it's for. It's great for mid-level or senior career level, but I think in-person networking and collegiate networks are better for recent grads. That's just me, though. Your list of connections on LinkedIn should be made up of the following: 1) Your co-workers, managers, colleagues in related departments. Current and former. 2) Professors and fellow students in your major, particularly ones you know fairly well. 3) People you've done business with in your field in other capacities. For example, contractors, consultants in your field, etc. 4) Relevant subject-matter and current-status groups. Examples from my list: "Ex-Pfizer Networking Group," "AAPS Formulation Discussion," and "Cornell Alumni." Alright - once you've got that (and you need to actually know most of these people, at least outside #4), the networking part starts. The job-listing part of LinkedIn auto-updates with relevant listings depending on what your online resume says, what groups you're in, and what your NETWORKED people do. It gets pretty accurate after a while, honestly. Meanwhile, you see where your co-workers are working, and you see listings put out by THEIR companies' representatives on LinkedIn. I have friends working at BMS, so due to that first-order connection, my news page shows whenever BMS Talent Acquisition recruiters advertise new openings. Sometimes co-workers contact you about jobs. More often, you contact THEM and ask them if they'd be willing to give you a referral for Job X at their company, which you want to apply to. Stuff like that. In set #4 (the groups), you've got the college connection, you've got relevant interest in your work (formulations for me) which lets you find new people to connect to / talk to, plus the occasional job posting, and then you've got huge numbers of job seekers / job postings in the ex-Pfizer group. There are new-grad job-seeking groups as well, but I don't think those are as valuable as using your campus network. It's just an extension of exactly the same stuff we were telling you to do in person several pages ago. It's online networking. VVVV That too! 
Sundae fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Jul 5, 2012 |
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Jul 5, 2012 14:01
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This thread is networking, too. You're meeting and talking to other people in the field, getting tips and hints, and this is a way a lot of people find out about jobs they're eventually hired into. I've gotten interviews before from jobs I've found through chatrooms and I'm sure many others are the same. Basically, just keep your eyes and ears open and take an opportunity if you have the chance.
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Jul 5, 2012 14:07
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I disagree that linkedin isn't great for recent grads. Recruiters are hungry for engineers at all levels it seems like.
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Jul 5, 2012 14:25
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Lord Gaga posted:I disagree that linkedin isn't great for recent grads. Recruiters are hungry for engineers at all levels it seems like. Fair enough. It wasn't around (or at least hadn't taken off yet) when I was a grad, so write my opinion off as old-fogeyism.
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Jul 5, 2012 14:33
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Since were talking about linkedin, anyone wanna look at mine? I will delete the link in a few days so please don't quote it. http://www.linkedin.com/in/orlandoengineer
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Jul 5, 2012 14:52
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Pollyanna posted:So my checklist now is to build up a network (god knows how) and pass my resume around to people who don't balk at me, but this might be harder than I thought. I am not a people person at all, if I wasn't socially retarded I wouldn't be posting here. Dude, didn't we spend an entire page one or two pages ago listing networking opportunities for you? There were at least a dozen from various posters, and I just thought of another one: hit up the SWE job fair/expo when you can. Don't spam people on LinkedIn; a lot of recruiters are dumb as hell and spam otherwise-useful groups with job postings. (Unfortunately, a lot of the posts in say high-speed signal design or embedded electronics are from Indian recruiters with a tenuous grasp on English at best) You could try to go for those postings, or just wait for people to occasionally message you after their search filters come across your profile. I think that's how most recruiters do it...they search for skills/etc, and comb through your profile. quote:If all else fails, gently caress it, grad school. I'll just lie about my GPA or something. Software is easy; being able to sling around code makes almost any job easier. It's essentially free to learn, and you can teach yourself what you need to know. Leave the buzzwords/business-y poo poo aside. Personal projects are a great way to teach yourself about another major/degree; it may not help you land the interview, but it will help immensely in the interview itself, when you can talk shop easily and it's apparent that you're passionate about the subject matter. I think in your situation, grad school has a good chance of trapping you in academia. What would a masters get you in two years? You'll be a BME graduate, with a BME/ME/EE masters...and no real experience. There's always the off-chance of getting lucky/networking into a job, I suppose, but I would not count on it. e: I don't know if it's just my school though, but those classmates that jumped straight into grad school after finishing undergrad (like, zero job experience)...were not the sharpest tools in the shed. They got decent LORs to get them in, but none of them would have lasted very long out in industry.
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Jul 5, 2012 15:00
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2012 15:19
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Thoguh posted:I loved LinkedIn, but the comments on any user group are useless and smell of desperation. 99.99% of every comment I've ever seen is some douchebag giving him or herself praise and compliments and trying to position themselves for a job offer. A dead give away that they are lying or have never worked as an engineer. All my work days are problem solving on whatever scale. My clients love to complain about why the can't pack hundreds of people into a room with only one escape route. Of course it's my fault that there are rules and laws. Through to actual mistakes. Your ability to resolve mistakes in a professional and competent manner is important.
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Jul 6, 2012 00:16
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movax posted:Software is easy; being able to sling around code makes almost any job easier. It's essentially free to learn, and you can teach yourself what you need to know. Leave the buzzwords/business-y poo poo aside. Personal projects are a great way to teach yourself about another major/degree; it may not help you land the interview, but it will help immensely in the interview itself, when you can talk shop easily and it's apparent that you're passionate about the subject matter. This is truth. I know a nickel's worth of code, and it's helpful for getting some dumb iterative stuff done. I'm working on learning python right now, since I've seen how useful it is for stuff. Thoguh posted:I loved LinkedIn, but the comments on any user group are useless and smell of desperation. 99.99% of every comment I've ever seen is some douchebag giving him or herself praise and compliments and trying to position themselves for a job offer. This is the truth. Anybody who does anything right the first time is probably working at an intern's level, and I don't trust anybody who DOESN'T have a story about how something expected went wrong. It's all in how you recover. As for networking, I think another thing to note here is that networking isn't just useful for getting a job, it's useful for building up a bunch of contacts that can fill out gaps in your knowledge base.
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Jul 6, 2012 00:40
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CCKeane posted:As for networking, I think another thing to note here is that networking isn't just useful for getting a job, it's useful for building up a bunch of contacts that can fill out gaps in your knowledge base. In twenty years, as career paths diverge, those contacts become loving invaluable whether you've jumped over to the business/managerial side of things or remain as a technical lead/subject-matter expert. Need some EMC consulting? Call up that EMC contact of yours who's now struck out on his own as a consultant (flip this around if you're the one going the consultant route). Doing business-y type things with another firm? Might be your friend across the table.
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Jul 6, 2012 01:17
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Devian666 posted:A dead give away that they are lying or have never worked as an engineer. All my work days are problem solving on whatever scale. My clients love to complain about why the can't pack hundreds of people into a room with only one escape route. Of course it's my fault that there are rules and laws. Through to actual mistakes. Your ability to resolve mistakes in a professional and competent manner is important. Holy poo poo, seriously. I've seen lots of messages saying that if you're a good engineer problems should never ever happen ever. That's just unrealistic. Connecting with people on LinkedIn now, hoping I can get places. 
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Jul 6, 2012 03:57
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Pollyanna posted:Holy poo poo, seriously. I've seen lots of messages saying that if you're a good engineer problems should never ever happen ever. That's just unrealistic. Oh heh just put together the request and this post. I was p impressed with the Mayo clinic internships and what not. Surprised youre having any trouble. Go through my connections and start adding anyone who says staffing/recruiter and get some emails going.
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Jul 6, 2012 05:28
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Lord Gaga posted:Since were talking about linkedin, anyone wanna look at mine? I will delete the link in a few days so please don't quote it. Looks good to me, the only "odd" thing to me (which isn't bad) is that your descriptions are written as a narrative. I don't know which is better; I was always told to do previous job descriptions in kind of a terse, not narrative style. No idea which is better (if at all), but yours are well written and get the point across, so I don't see a problem. e: if you want to network around MI or something, I think you can search e-mails on LinkedIn. It's my username at my username dot org.
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Jul 6, 2012 06:04
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Pollyanna posted:Holy poo poo, seriously. I've seen lots of messages saying that if you're a good engineer problems should never ever happen ever. That's just unrealistic. Those people have only been part of 2 to 3 year paid internships where they are coddled, micromanaged and given minor tasks to complete. Pay them no mind - most will crash and burn hard when they get exposed to a true engineering project. I've done quite a few power engineering studies, and if a project goes off without a hitch, something is seriously wrong.
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Jul 6, 2012 07:14
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jul 6, 2012 11:22
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I just got my first callback from an employer about an application I submitted. Taking a basic "do you know your crap" all-day test in a couple weeks. The job would have me doing exactly what my degree readied me to do, for exactly what I hoped to make, exactly where I am already. You know the end scene in Kill Bill part 2 where Uma Thurman's on the floor in her hotel room bathroom crying and hugging herself with joy because she's free to enjoy life after getting her kid back? That was me after seeing an employer's email saying "Let me know when we can set up an interview time" finally. Hopefully I get the job, and it's T-minus about 4 or 5 years until I'm operating nuclear reactors like it ain't no thing.
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Jul 6, 2012 18:25
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Jul 6, 2012 18:53
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Thoguh posted:Not in LinkedIn comments. Everyone makes those claims, all the way up to senior architect type guys and gals. It's why I was so disapointed at how worthless all the discussions are on LinkedIn. Nobody is talking, everybody is posturing. I never really looked at them that closely. All I saw were a bunch of salespeople advertising their products, realized the discussions were pointless and never went back. I did, however, get my current job via LinkedIn so it does have it's merits. Edit: Pander - good luck with the interview!
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Jul 6, 2012 19:12
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